HAPPY FATHER'S DAY -- RYAN LIZZA: McCain chafes at Rubio -- SCHUMER: Immigration needs 70 votes in Senate to give momentum for House -- EMMETT BELIVEAU named director of White House Military Office

BULLETIN – Jennifer Epstein: “White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told Bob Schieffer on CBS's ‘Face the Nation’ that he is unsure of whether leaker Edward Snowden is still in Hong Kong: ‘I don’t know where he is.’ McDonough suggested he has doubts about some of the claims Snowden made, including that he would have been able to access President Obama's personal accounts. McDonough said it's ‘surely my view that [Snowden] did’ overstate what he was capable of doing. McDonough also cautioned against ‘some of the hyperbole that’s now being thrown around’ by Snowden and others, which can ‘somehow cast a pall on the intelligence community’ and all the hard-working, patriotic people working in the field.”

--“U.S. spy agency paper says fewer than 300 phone numbers closely scrutinized,” by Reuters’ Mark Hosenball: “The U.S. government only searched for detailed information on calls involving fewer than 300 specific phone numbers among the millions of raw phone records collected by the National Security Agency in 2012, according to a government paper ... The unclassified paper was circulated Saturday within the government by U.S. intelligence agencies and apparently is an attempt by spy agencies and the Obama administration to rebut accusations that it overreached in investigating potential militant plots. ... The paper ... said that data from the NSA phone and email collections programs not only led U.S. investigators to the ringleader of a plot to attack New York's subway system in 2009, but also to one of his co-conspirators in the United States.” http://reut.rs/11EqGDS

--“Cheney: Snowden is a 'traitor,' possibly Chinese spy,” by Jennifer Epstein: Former Vice President Cheney told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that he is suspicious of Snowden's decision to travel to Hong Kong and perhaps share intelligence with the Chinese: ‘I'm suspicious because he went to China. That's not a place where you would ordinarily want to go if you are interested in freedom, liberty and so forth ... It raises questions whether or not he had that kind of connection before he did this. ... I think he’s a traitor. I think he has committed crimes.’”

JEB BUSH, on ABC’s “This Week,” to guest host Jonathan Karl, on what his father, President George H.W. Bush, thinks of him running for president, given that his mother recently said the country has had “enough Bushes”: “I think we’ve got a split ballot amongst ... the Bush-senior family. [Laughs] Pretty sure that’s the case.” Video http://abcn.ws/12zyBbM

FIRST LOOK – RYAN LIZZA in The New Yorker, “The Political Scene: GETTING TO MAYBE -- Inside the Gang of Eight’s immigration deal ... John McCain and Charles Schumer, the senators behind the bipartisan initiative, overcame a long-standing mutual wariness”: “[A] senior White House offcial insisted that Obama’s role in overseeing details of the bill has been more signifcant than is generally known. ‘No decisions are being made without talking to us about it,’ the official said of the Gang of Eight negotiations ... ‘This does not fly if we’re not O.K. with it, because everyone knows this is going to pass with some Republicans but with a majority of Democrats, and it’s going to require even more Democrats in the House.’ ... ‘We’re not worried about short-term political credit. We’ll get plenty of it if it gets signed,’ the official said, adding that the White House was willing to let Republicans like [Lindsey] Graham and [Marco] Rubio, who are regularly attacked by conservatives, have the political space they needed. ... ‘We’re the hammer on the back end. If the Republicans try to scuttle it, we’re the ones who can communicate to the Latino community who scuttled it.’ ...

“ The senators’ immigration-policystaffers also attended the Gang’s meetings, and, over time, two stood out: Leon Fresco, a Schumer aide, and Enrique Gonzalez, a Rubio aide. Both are Cuban-American lawyers from Miami who know the intricacies of immigration law. On one occasion, Fresco interrupted Schumer and corrected him on a technical point. According to McCain, Schumer, who is known for being colloquial with his staff, retorted, ‘Shut up, Leon!’ McCain remarked that Schumer and Fresco seemed to have a relationship akin to the characters played by John Goodman and Steve Buscemi in the cult movie ‘The Big Lebowski.’ ... McCain, who is a stickler for observing the institution’s hierarchy, soon began greeting Fresco with a hearty ‘Shut up, Leon!’ ... Fresco and Gonzalez helped to unlock the deal with labor and the Chamber of Commerce. The two biggest sticking points were wages for foreign workers (the unions wanted them to be higher) and the objections of the Building and Construction Trades union, which argues that plenty of Americans are looking for this kind of work.

“Rubio sided with the Chamber against the construction workers. ‘There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it,’ a Rubio aide told me. ‘There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.’ In the end, the wage issue was settled to the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s satisfaction, and the Building and Construction Trades union won a cap on the number of visas for foreign construction workers. On March 29th, Good Friday, Fresco called Schumer and said that the two sides had reached an agreement. It was 10 P.M., but Schumer wanted to call [the AFL-CIO’s Richard] Trumka and [the Chamber’s Tom] Donohue to make sure that they wouldn’t back out. He checked with a few of his Catholic staffers to see if it was all right to call on Good Friday. They told him it was. Schumer called Trumka and Donohue separately, then conferenced them into the same call. They agreed to support the temporary worker provision. ‘That was the first moment that I said, we can actually get this done,’ Schumer recalled.

“In the morning, he called Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, who was starting to have doubts about the Gang, and gave him the news. ‘You guys are kicking ass,’ McDonough said. ... Schumer said [of Rubio], “He’s the real deal. He is smart, he is substantive. He knows when to compromise and when to hold. And he’s personable.’ An aide to Menendez said that, if the Gang were a group of high-school students, Rubio would be the cool jock and the captain of the football team, with whom everyone wanted to hang out. Schumer often found himself mediating disputes between Rubio and McCain, who felt that Rubio’s public statements sometimes positioned him positively with conservatives at the expense of the Gang. McCain would call Schumer and fume, “Look what Rubio’s doing! ...

“Fox News has notably changed its tone since the election. ... McCain told me, “Rupert Murdoch is a strong supporter of immigration reform, and Roger Ailes is, too.’ ... McCain said that he, Graham, Rubio, and others also have talked privately to top hosts at Fox, including Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Neil Cavuto, who are now relatively sympathetic to the Gang’s proposed bill. ... The unity of the Gang fractured at one point when Rubio, who often tried to find ways to set himself apart from the seven other senators, announced his support for an amendment requiring biometric tracking for visa holders which the Gang had agreed to oppose. ...

“The White House is cautiously optimistic about the prospects for immigration reform, even in the House ... Schumer told me that he wanted a super-majority. ‘There’s some talk we don’t need seventy votes,’ he said. ‘We need seventy.’ There are fifty-four Democratic votes in the chamber, and Schumer argued that support for a comprehensive bill would collapse in the House unless more Senate Republicans supported the bill. ‘If you get sixty-one, you get only seven Republican votes, then the House will say we don’t need a path to citizenship. They’ll say, “We’ll do high tech, we’ll do ag, we’ll let the people work, but no path to citizenship.” And the Hispanic community will say no and there will be no bill. You need momentum, particularly on the Republican side.’ The White House agrees. ‘The best way to get things through the House is to pass them through the Senate first with a bipartisan stamp of approval,’ the senior Obama official said, noting that the House Speaker, John Boehner, has been unusually accommodating. ... ‘It could prove that Washington isn’t one hundred per cent broken. If a Gang of Eight-style bill is signed into law by the President, it will probably be one of the top five legislative accomplishments in the last twenty years. It’s a huge piece of business. The lesson is that, if both parties see something in their political interest, they’re very good at getting it done.’” Link live soonhttp://nyr.kr/12Os91W

--BEHIND THE CURTAIN – A Rubio aide: “Sen. Rubio declined to participate in the piece, and our office strongly objected to the magazine using the background quotes like they did because they misrepresented the Senator's position.”

EXCLUSIVE -- WHITE HOUSE TRANSITION -- Emmett Beliveau taking over for George Mulligan as director of Military Office: “After more than 20 continuous years at the White House Military Office (WHMO), and serving as its Director since October 2009, George D. Mulligan ended an extraordinary chapter of service on Friday. Mulligan is beloved by the White House staff and ably led a broad organization that provides essential military support to the White House (Air Force One, Marine One, Camp David, White House Medical Unit, White House Mess, White House Communications Agency, White House Transportation Agency, and other directorates). At a surprise farewell ceremony on Thursday in the West Wing, Mulligan was awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award for his extraordinary work -- the highest civilian award given by the Department. Mulligan is heading to the Pentagon after a brief break.

“President Obama has named Emmett S. Beliveau to lead WHMO. Beliveau has been at the White House since the first day of the Obama Administration, serving as Director of Advance and Operations, and then as Director of the Chief of Staff’s Office for both Bill Daley and Jack Lew. Beliveau is respected across the Administration and has worked closely with WHMO on initiatives ranging from planning international summits to Obama’s secret trips to Afghanistan and Iraq.”

--Statement from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel: “For nearly twenty years, George Mulligan has provided outstanding support to three Commanders-in-Chief serving in the White House Military Office. As Director of that office, George has provided an essential link between the White House and the Department of Defense. He is a terrific leader. I look forward to welcoming him back to the Department of Defense and his continued service to the nation. I am also looking forward to working with Emmett Beliveau as the new Director of the White House Military Office. Emmett has already done outstanding work in a number of complex roles at the White House and has deep experience working with the U.S. military. I am confident he will help ensure that the men and women of the Department of Defense meet the highest standards in the many roles in which they support the Commander in Chief.”

TOP TALKER – N.Y. Times A1, above fold, “Tea for 2? Kentucky Senators in a Marriage of Convenience,” by Trip Gabriel: “In a Republican primary in his home state of Kentucky, Senator Mitch McConnell backed the establishment candidate in 2010, blinkered to the historic Tea Party wave that swept in the political newcomer Rand Paul. ... Today, the iciness has been replaced by a powerful force in politics: expedience. Mr. McConnell, 71, the embodiment of Washington establishment, and Mr. Paul, 50, a grass-roots insurgent who harbors a brightly burning presidential ambition for 2016, have formed an odd-couple, scratch-my-back alliance ... Fearing a right-wing challenger to his re-election next year, Mr. McConnell has hired Mr. Paul’s [2010] campaign manager [Jesse Benton] to run his Kentucky race. He embraced one of Mr. Paul’s pet causes, legalizing hemp farming ... The minority leader — old-school, phlegmatic, slightly intimidating — has sought to quietly slip a hemp bill onto the Senate floor for a voice vote, which would avoid a potentially embarrassing debate on a measure widely opposed by law enforcement authorities. ...

“Democratic Senate aides say Mr. McConnell ... is squeezed between Republicans who want to reach across the aisle on substantive policy and the Tea Party troops, including Mr. Paul and Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. ‘The combination of their numbers growing in the Senate and McConnell being terrified of his right flank in his own re-election’ has blunted his effectiveness as a leader, said Adam Jentleson, a senior aide to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader. Josh Holmes, Mr. McConnell’s chief of staff, dismissed that analysis as ‘a Democratic talking point’ intended to ‘drive a wedge between Republicans.’ ... McConnell’s support has included securing a seat for Mr. Paul on the Foreign Relations Committee over the objections of Republican hawks. Mr. Paul wanted the post to show establishment Republicans he is not his father, whose biggest vulnerability with party leaders was a noninterventionist foreign policy.” http://nyti.ms/12OH9g1

MAUREEN DOWD, “Bill Schools Barry on Syria: The man who loved polls too much warns the president not to”: “NOT only is President Obama leading from behind, now he’s leading from behind Bill Clinton. After dithering for two years over what to do about the slaughter in Syria, the president was finally shoved into action by the past and perhaps future occupant of his bedroom. Clinton told John McCain during a private Q. and A. on Tuesday in New York that Obama should be more forceful on Syria and should not rationalize with opinion polls that reflect Americans’ reluctance to tangle in foreign crises. ... As Maggie Haberman reported in Politico, Clinton said at the McCain Institute for International Leadership that the public elects presidents and lawmakers to ‘look around the corner and see down the road’ and ‘to win,’ not to follow polls. When the man who polled where to take his summer vacation and whether to tell the truth about his affair with Monica Lewinsky tells you you’re a captive of polls, you’d better listen up. ...

“The silver-tongued campaigner has turned out to be a leaden salesman in the Oval Office. On issues from drones to gun control to taxes to Syria, the president likes to cite public opinion polls to justify his action or inaction. He seems incapable of getting in front of issues and shaping public and Congressional opinion with a strong selling job. ... [A]s the White House announced this pittance of a policy on Thursday evening, the president was nowhere to be seen. ... The less Obama leads, the more likely it is that history will see him as a pallid interregnum between two chaotic Clinton eras.” http://nyti.ms/12zl97I

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BREAKING – “Iranians Celebrate Rohani's Surprise Win as Reason for Hope,” by Bloomberg’s Ladane Nasseri, Kambiz Foroohar and Yeganeh Salehi: “Hassan Rohani, who criticized government intervention in Iranian lives and pledged dialogue with the world, won the nation's presidency with enough backing to avoid a second-round vote. Residents of Tehran celebrated into the night after it was announced yesterday that Rohani won 50.7 percent of the 37 million votes counted. ... The unexpected victory, after two polls in state-run news agencies predicted a close race, hands Rohani the presidency four years after a clampdown on protesters undermined the legitimacy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election over Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is still under house arrest. Rohani, 64, will need approval from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran's ultimate authority, to improve relations with the West and turn around an economy hit by sanctions over its nuclear program.”

NSA BACKSTORY – WashPost A1 splash, “NSA SURVEILLANCE: THE ARCHITECTURE -- Four-pronged U.S. approach relies heavily on data behind phone, Internet communications,” by Barton Gellman, with Julie Tate and Ellen Nakashima: “The debate has focused on two of the four U.S.-based collection programs: PRISM, for Internet content, and the comprehensive collection of telephone call records, foreign and domestic, that the Guardian revealed by posting a classified order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to Verizon Business Services. The Post has learned that similar orders have been renewed every three months for other large U.S. phone companies, including Bell South and AT&T, since May 24, 2006. ... The Bush administration ... had been taking ‘bulk metadata’ from the phone companies under voluntary agreements for more than four years. ....

“When the New York Times revealed the warrantless surveillance of voice calls, in December 2005, the telephone companies got nervous. One of them, unnamed in [a classified report from the NSA inspector general in 2009], approached the NSA with a request. Rather than volunteer the data, at a price, the ‘provider preferred to be compelled to do so by a court order,’ the report said. Other companies followed suit. ... At Bush’s direction, in orders prepared by David Addington, the counsel to Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the NSA had been siphoning e-mail metadata and technical records of Skype calls from data links owned by AT&T, Sprint and MCI, which later merged with Verizon.” http://wapo.st/13KFrsP

A PLAYBOOK FIRST – ENGAGED: Matt Nocella, spokesman for the National Hydropower Association, asked Senate Energy Committee staffer John Assini for his hand in marriage. Hsaid yes! Matt proposed to John at the D.C. War Memorial, where the two met as GW undergrads.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT – Pool report from Danielle Pletka's 50th birthday party: Dany Pletka, AEI’s vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, celebrated at her McLean home with friends and family and her husband, Stephen Rademaker, of the Podesta Group.

--SPOTTED: The police, who showed up at Dany and Steve's door at the height of the party to check on noise levels. She tweeted a pic of the police telling Steve to quiet things down. ... Dany's mom, dad, brother and children ... A sushi chef ... Frank Record of MK Technology ... Peter Lichtenbaum of Covington & Burling ... Marc Thiessen, former Bush speechwriter ... J.D. Crouch , QinetiQ CEO, former deputy national security adviser ... Roger Noriega of AEI ... Bonnie Benwick of WashPost ... Mark Tavlardies of Podesta Group and Marilyn Rosenthal of AIPAC) ... D.J. Ben Chang, who played a full night of ’80s tunes on vinyl, with co-D.J. Ashley Chandler of USGLC. @DPletka photo of law-enforcement arrivalhttp://bit.ly/1bJGGdo

MOOD MUSIC – N.Y. Times A1, below fold, “Even Pessimists Feel Optimistic Over Economy,” by Nelson D. Schwartz: “[A] number of economists in academia and on Wall Street, ... are now predicting something the United States has not experienced in years: healthier, more lasting growth. The improving outlook is one reason the stock market has risen so sharply this year, even if street-level evidence for a turnaround, like strong job growth and income gains, has been scant so far. ... Certainly, there are significant headwinds that will not abate anytime soon, including an aging population, government austerity, the worst income inequality in nearly a century and more than four million long-term unemployed workers. ... ‘The great stagnation will end for a lot of people but not everyone,’ [said Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University and author of ‘The Great Stagnation,’ a 2011 bestseller.] ‘I think there will be great breakthroughs but the distribution of those gains will go to owners of capital and intellectual property.’” http://nyti.ms/13L47Bt

2014 WATCH – AP for Mon. papers, “Ark. Sen. Pryor hit from right, left before 2014,” by Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock: “The conservative Club for Growth tags Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor as President Barack Obama's ‘closest ally’ in the state while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun-control advocacy group says Pryor ‘let us down.’ Pryor's re-election race is 17 months away, but the Democratic incumbent seen as perhaps the most vulnerable in 2014 is already taking hits from the right and the left. That's forced the second-term senator to aggressively defend himself and step into re-election mode sooner than planned, even though he has no Republican opponent. ... National and state Republicans are eager to topple Pryor, whose father, David, was a senator and governor. ... Among Republicans, U.S. Reps. Tom Cotton and Steve Womack are widely viewed as potential challengers.”

POLL DU JOUR – Boston Sunday Globe 2-col. lead, “Markey holds solid lead over Gomez, poll says: A 13-point gap with 10 days to go, but disengaged voters remain unpredictable,” by Frank Phillips and Michael Levenson: “Democrat Edward J. Markey holds a solid lead over his Republican rival, Gabriel E. Gomez, as the two enter the final week of the special US Senate campaign, according to a new Boston Globe poll. Markey, who has driven up concerns about his GOP opponent with a barrage of hard-hitting television ads, leads Gomez 54 percent to 41 percent, with only 4 percent of the respondents saying they were still undecided about whom to support in the June 25 election. ... Gomez is the candidate poll respondents find more likable and he holds the lead among unenrolled voters — the critical bloc of independents whose support he’ll need to top a Democrat in Massachusetts. But that margin is only 9 percentage points. Analysts believe that for a Republican to win in Massachusetts, he must win the unenrolled vote by a 2-to-1 margin. The Cohasset private equity executive has also failed to make inroads with women, leaving Markey with a huge margin among female voters.”

OBAMA TRIP PREP – “Spy sweeps test Obama's rock star status in Europe,” by AFP’s Stephen Collinson: “Explosive revelations about US phone and Internet surveillance programs will challenge President Obama's popularity and moral authority when he lands in Europe on Monday. Because he was not George W. Bush, who was reviled in much of Europe, and thanks to a magnetic personal story and rise to power, Obama wallowed in hero worship as a candidate ... [N]ow, Obama has been revealed as the figurehead of a secret American intelligence war that is more sweeping than anybody knew. ... Someone who is not American, but is familiar with the president's performance in summits, ... said Obama enjoyed high personal authority around the G8 table. He is always well-briefed and respected as someone who seeks out colleagues for personal chats, and wields considerable weight as the G8's most powerful member.”

-–“Obama looks to harness JFK magic on Berlin visit,” by AFP’s Deborah Cole in Berlin: “Obama will walk in John F. Kennedy's footsteps this week on his first visit to Berlin as US president, but encounter a more powerful and sceptical Germany in talks on trade and secret surveillance practices. ... Obama has cultivated an effective if ‘workmanlike’ relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe's most influential leader, mirroring a sobering of transatlantic ties since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Obama, who dazzled a crowd of 200,000 people with an open-air speech in 2008, ... will face more modest expectations this time round on his arrival late Tuesday for a 24-hour stay. But he appears ready to try to harness some of the alliance's bygone sparkle by timing his visit one week ahead of the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech. ... Accompanied by his wife Michelle, Obama will hold another public address about the countries' ‘enduring bonds’ Wednesday, this time at the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity.”

--The (London) Sunday Times, p. 1, “Cameron faces defeat over Syria,” by Jack Grimston, Isabel Oakeshott and Hala Jaber in Damascus: “DAVID CAMERON has been warned that he faces an embarrassing defeat in the Commons if he tries to win parliamentary agreement for Britain to arm Syrian rebels. The prime minister and William Hague, the foreign secretary, are keen to help the forces fighting President Bashar al-Assad, but Conservative whips have told Downing Street there would be little chance of winning a vote for such a move. Cameron’s political difficulties leave him boxed in as he tries to support President Barack Obama, who has promised to step up aid for the rebels.”

MEDIAWATCH – “Morning show is latest CNN change under Zucker,” by AP Television Writer David Bauder: “Monday is the debut of the ‘New Day’ morning show. ‘New Day’ will feature the team of Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira in a three-hour telecast CNN promises will be newsy but not drowsy, an attempt to establish a morning program for a new generation. ... CNN [Worldwide president] Jeff Zucker ... produced NBC's ‘Today’ in the 1990s ... [‘New Day’] represents the biggest on-air change at CNN since the former NBC Universal chief took on the task of reshaping the pioneering news network in January. ... Zucker said[:] ‘I want a show that sets the tone and the agenda for the day for the entire network.’ On weekday mornings CNN has lagged behind Fox News Channel and MSNBC, which have distinctive shows in ‘Fox & Friends’ and ‘Morning Joe.’ Even CNN sister network HLN sometimes does better with Robin Meade's ‘Morning Express.’ ... Zucker has tried to erase a losing mentality and strengthen CNN's news identity while keeping audiences interested during slow periods. Little touches, like bringing back James Earl Jones' booming voice to announce ‘This is CNN’ are reminiscent of his old days as a line producer. ...

“CNN viewership is up 18 percent from 2012 throughout the day and night, the Nielsen Co. said. That puts CNN back into second place behind Fox, moving past slumping MSNBC. MSNBC is still second during weekday prime time, but its viewership is down 11 percent and CNN is up 9 percent ... Jake Tapper is a ... hire from ABC whose own later afternoon hour, ‘The Lead,’ is considered a template for Zucker's mantra to broaden the definition of news. CNN is also devoting the noon hour primarily to international news. The prime-time lineup is unchanged, but alternatives are being considered. ... Anthony Bourdain's Sunday night show, ‘Parts Unknown,’ is considered a success. ... Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is about to premiere his own series, ‘Inside Man,’ that examines little-known sectors of American life. A Ridley Scott series ‘Crimes of the Century’ will profile some colorful criminals. CNN is also increasing its production of documentary films.” http://bit.ly/19F48fg

–N.Y. Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, “Sources With Secrets Find New Outlets for Sharing: The Times has been at the center of some blockbuster leaks, but not the latest one”: “When news sources want to go public with a major revelation, they don’t need The Times. ... Forty-two years after The Times published the Pentagon Papers — that crucial story that revealed the lies the American government had told its citizens about the Vietnam War — a news source has more choices. Still, The Times imprimatur is powerful, and its national security reporters are, for good reason, extremely well respected. ... I’m glad the truth came out, no matter who published it. Looking ahead, one might ask if every potential leak recipient has the resources to verify information and make responsible decisions about using it. Perhaps not, and that is a significant downside to what is over all a positive development.” http://nyti.ms/158DAvN

DESSERT – “Kim Kardashian gives birth to baby girl: reports” – Reuters/L.A.: “Reality television star Kim Kardashian gave birth to a girl fathered by rapper Kanye West, celebrity magazines People and Us Weekly reported Saturday. ... People magazine said Kardashian, 32, gave birth on Saturday ahead of schedule, with the baby reportedly due in early July.”

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Authors:

About The Author

Mike Allen is the chief White House correspondent for POLITICO. He comes to us from Time magazine where he was their White House correspondent. Prior to that, Allen spent six years at The Washington Post, where he covered President Bush's first term, Capitol Hill, campaign finance, and the Bush, Gore and Bradley campaigns of 2000. Before turning to national politics, he covered schools and local governments in rural counties outside Fredericksburg, Va., for The Free Lance-Star, then wrote about Doug Wilder, Oliver North, Chuck Robb and the Bobbitts for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, where he nurtured police sources on overnight ride-alongs through housing projects. Allen also covered Mayor Giuliani, the Connecticut statehouse and the wacky rich of Greenwich for The New York Times. Before moving to The Times, he did stints in the Richmond and Alexandria bureaus of The Washington Post. Allen grew up in Orange County, Calif., and has a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where he majored in politics and journalism.